Maybe when you finished college, you sat back and took pride in what you’d accomplished.

Maybe you even blew off some serious steam for a couple of days. Or weeks. Or months.

Even if, on the other hand, you were the driven type, focused on starting your career, you probably didn’t go quite as fast as Northeast Ohio native Alex Wyse.

“I think the day I graduated I got in the car and moved right to New York and hit the ground running,” says Wyse, who grew up in Beachwood and now is a professional actor living in the Big Apple and currently playing a key role in a North American tour of the smash Broadway musical “Wicked.” “I’ve been working since I got out of school very consistently, and I’m pretty proud of that.”

Before becoming a professional, the 2005 Beachwood High School graduate cut his teeth in myriad Northeast Ohio community theater productions, including two shows at Chagrin Valley Little Theatre in Chagrin Falls when he was 10 and 11, and “Into the Woods” at Lakeland Civic Theatre in Kirtland a few years later.

After high school, he attended Boston University, where he studied acting but was able to get experience in writing and other aspects of theater and arts.

“But I always wanted to have a focus on acting,” he says. “I wanted to involve myself as much as I could while keeping my focus in theater.”

Since following his dreams to New York, Wyse has appeared in commercials and TV programs and performed in several theater productions, including being part of the Broadway cast of “Lysistrata Jones.”

Wyse was with that show when it moved from off Broadway to a Broadway theater — and then saw it live a fairly short life.

“That was a pretty huge life experience, to go through the ups and downs of that,” he says. “It was pretty devastating, but it’s OK. It’s one of the many things that has taught me to get back up and keep going.

“This business is not for the faint of heart.”

Well, now he’s part of a juggernaut. Debuting on Broadway just over 10 years ago, “Wicked” now has nine productions around the world. Based on Gregory Maguire’s 1995 novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” the musical tells the tale of the witch, aka Elphaba, starting before the events of “The Wizard of Oz” and continuing during them in a parallel story line.

The show, which boasts memorable tunes such as “The Wizard and I” and “Defying Gravity,” was nominated for 10 Tony Awards in 2004, winning three.

“This has been amazing. I’ve never been part of a show that’s been such a monster hit,” says Wyse, on the phone from the show’s stint in Indianapolis. “This is a very rare thing to be a part of. How many ‘Wicked’s are there?”

Wyse portrays Boq, a Munchkin who was a minor character in L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” but who is much more key to the “Wicked” story.

“I’m the munchkin who’s in love with Galinda, but Galinda doesn’t return my affections,” he says. “That sets some of the plot in motion.”

(Galinda, for the uninitiated, is the early name of the woman who will come to be known as Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. And Boq, himself, goes through a transformation, but saying any more than that would be a spoiler.)

Ultimately, though, this is the story of Elphaba, who doesn’t easily fit in — something with which many people can relate.

“The way that people connect with this show is so special,” Wyse says. “It’s a show about an outsider who takes control of her own destiny. And it’s also a show about friendship and acceptance.”

That this tour would come through Cleveland — during the holidays no less — did not go unnoticed by Wyse when playing Boq became a possibility.

“Oh, I can’t wait (to come home). This is one of the main reasons I wanted to be part of this,” he says.

His career has brought him home before. A production of “Lost in Yonkers” made its second of three stops at the Cleveland Play House a few years ago, but this will be a bigger deal. He’s already dealing with many ticket requests from friends and family, of course.

“I imagine I’ll be giving a lot of backstage tours,” he says, “but I’ll be really happy to do it.”

This tour of “Wicked” may be a big, shiny mark on Wyse’s résumé, but there have been lots of little jobs and projects. Keeping busy is important to him, and perhaps the best advice he can give to someone who wants to follow a similar path is to be proactive and work on your own projects, even if they don’t add up to anything all that substantial.

“If your career is sitting around waiting for your agent to call you — waiting for the phone to ring — you’re not going to have much of a career,” he says. “Even when I’m not making a lot of money, (working) is feeding me creatively. It’s giving me a reason to get up in the morning.
“I try to make the phone calls. I try to do as much as I can.”

Tough ticket
Tickets for “Wicked” tend to go fast, but PlayhouseSquare holds a limited number of orchestra seats for a day-of-performance lottery. Two and one-half hours prior to each performance, people who present themselves at the PlayhouseSquare ticket office will have their names placed in a lottery drum. Thirty minutes later, names will be drawn for a limited number of orchestra seats at $25 each, cash only, according to a news release. This lottery is available only in person at the box office, with a limit of two tickets per person. Lottery participants must have a valid photo ID when submitting their entry form and, if chosen, when purchasing tickets.
For those wanting to go the traditional ticket-buying route, a PlayhouseSquare spokeswoman said the following performances had the most tickets remaining:

About the Author

Mark is a lifelong Northeast Ohioan and an Ohio University grad. Along with loving music, movies and television, he is crazy about sports and tech. Reach the author at mmeszoros@news-herald.com
or follow Mark on Twitter: @MarkMeszoros.